Rants and reasonings from a compassionate asshole.

Category Archives: On the Menu

One form of animal use I find particularly repugnant are charity fundraisers that serve or cook animals “for a good cause”. Not only does it use the tired rationale employed by humans to justify the way we treat certain animals – treatment that should not be questioned if it furthers a human agenda or desire – but serving someone’s suffering to raise money to alleviate another’s is about as senseless as it gets.

We see fundraisers like this all of the time: from annual BBQ’s to bake sales to black tie events that cost hundreds of dollars a plate. Organizations from hospitals to private corporations use food as a way to raise funding for charity. I mean, we all have to eat, right? Sure. But we don’t have to eat suffering, particularly when the focus of a fundraiser is to raise money to end it. Continue reading →

Next month I’m signed up to renew my Food Handler’s Certificate here in Toronto. It’s not a difficult course – it’s one day of training with a multiple choice exam at the end. Once you pass, you get a little card and pin and the Certificate is valid for five years. The point of the course is to learn proper food handling, e.g., required cooking temperatures, how to avoid cross-contamination, how to store foods properly, and so on. It’s a useful thing to have should I ever return to the restaurant industry and this will be my fourth time taking it but my first as a vegan. It’ll be an interesting day in that over half of it will be spent learning the proper techniques for preparing and cooking dead animal parts. Yay.Continue reading →

A friend of mine tells a story that happened to him a few years ago when he stopped at a diner in small-town Ontario and was shocked to find a veggie burger listed on the menu. He’s a vegan so naturally, he ordered it. When the burger came to the table, it was clearly not a veggie burger but a ground meat patty with lettuce and tomato. When he told the waitress this was a mistake, she informed him there was no mistake – that was what he’d ordered. Questioning her further, she said: